News

Bruins News

Friday mornings are usually fun, but...

by
Staff Writer
/ Boston Bruins

There’s not a whole lot to say about Thursday night.

Despite a lot of optimism, a terrific first period and a whole lot of fun things going on before the game, the wind left the sails of the S.S. Black & Gold pretty quickly when Toronto scored five goals in the second period en route to an embarrassing 10-2 debacle for the B’s -- 10 goals being the most allowed at home since the opening of the current building.

Head coach Dave Lewis seemed at a loss, as well.

"I don’t think there are enough…words to describe it," said a clearly flabbergasted Lewis during his usual post-game press conference. "It wasn’t a win -- I’ll put it that way."

No, it wasn’t, and when asked if last night’s loss belied a pattern from the previous two or three games.

"Well, each game is different. (But) we’ve given up five (goals), five and 10 now," said Lewis, who explained that beyond any ’carryover’ from previous losses the Bruins did not pay the price last night.

"When we play the way we’re supposed to play, as a team we have ice bags on different parts of our body," said Lewis. "And we’re exhausted at the end of a game we can walk out of the building knowing that we’ve prepared and did everything possible to win.

"And the last few games we’ve gotten away from that for whatever reason, it’s not there."

It didn’t have to be that way, conceded Lewis.

"We started the game well," said the head coach. "We had some down ice pressure. We had the lead. They scored and we got the lead back.

"And in the second period, we had some fundamental breakdowns.

"They had some easy tap-in goals because of our coverage. So it was a coverage issue -- and then it just grew and grew and grew."

And the most distressing thing, from a team standpoint, was the lack of togetherness.

"You can blame everybody. Blame the coaches (and) blame the players. We’re in this together," said Coach.

"And this is the time that I talked about at the beginning of the year -- about supporting each other and being there for each other -- in the ’dark’ days.

"And we are in the dark days right now."

The team was behind closed locker room doors longer than usual, post-game.

So what did you say to the team, coach?

"We talked about a whole bunch of issues, but I guess basically the meat-and-potatoes of the conversation was that there is a fine line between winning and losing," explained Lewis.

"If you talked to me on Dec. 23rd (when the Bruins defeated the Canadiens), I felt we were on the plus side of that fine line.

"Now, I think we’re a long way from that fine line."

So where do the Bruins go from here?

"We’re trying to get into the playoffs. That’s what we want to do. There are really not eight spots available. There’s only five (because divisional champs claim the first three). So we have to get in that five.

"To do that, we have to do the little things."

Coach Lewis has talked so often about the little things that none of the writers in the room asked what they were.

Today, the key for Dave and the rest of the staff, is reminding the players about those little things and what exactly they have to do to win big games.

No doubt those reminders will be at hand when the Bruins take the ice at noon today for practice at the TD Banknorth Garden because from here on out, all of Boston’s remaining games are big.